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N. J. Higham

British medieval historian and archaeologist

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ11791055 ↗
Source-derived summary

Nicholas John Higham (born 1951) is a British archaeologist, historian, and academic. He was Professor of Early Medieval and Landscape History at the University of Manchester, and is now an emeritus professor.

Higham was trained as an archaeologist at Manchester, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1977. He taught at Manchester from 1977 to 2011.

Bibliography

with Barri Jones, The Carvetti, Sutton (Gloucester, England), 1985, new edition, 1991.

The Northern Counties to AD 1000, Regional History of England, Longman, (New York, NY), 1986.

Rome, Britain, and the Anglo-Saxons, Seaby (London, England), 1992.

The Kingdom of Northumbria: AD 350-1100, Sutton (Gloucester, England), 1993.

The Origins of Cheshire, Manchester University Press (Manchester, England), 1993.

An English Empire: Bede and the Early Anglo-Saxon Kings, Manchester University Press (Manchester, England), 1995.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “N. J. Higham” is british medieval historian and archaeologist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Higham, British and medieval, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1951, 1977, 2011, 1985—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1951-06-21, 1951—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Higham, British and medieval is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british medieval historian and archaeologist” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11791055. VIAF identifies the subject as 165761437. The Library of Congress control number is n84180352. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951, 1977, 2011 and 1985.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “N. J. Higham”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow N. J. Higham primary sources, N. J. Higham archive and Higham research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “N. J. Higham”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “N. J. Higham” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.